How To Be Smarter Than Your PR Agency: Webinar Findings

I attended a webinar put on by Hubspot.com today about PR strategies in relation to Traditional vs Social Media releases.

The best tidbits I took away from the meeting are as follows (The Excutive Summary):

1. You shouldn't fire your PR firm and go it alone, but rather be sure they are following guidelines that will lead to the goals you have set for your campaign and company.
   
2. How to optimize your press releases:
   
• Use anchor text but use URL in parenthesis.
• Don’t use bullets.
• Include logo graphic, it doesn't hurt.
• Don’t embed multimedia.
• Some news services prefer Attributed Quote at the end of release.
• Make content crystal clear, be direct and concise.
• Use keywords within the release that are long tail (not as saturated with others).
• Use a describe headline (Be clear, interesting, and use keywords).
• Don’t make headlines too long (80 characters).
• Use a header tag for your headline (when your release is on the web).
• Don't use ineffective words “catch phrases” like “cutting edge!”
• Length of release should be 300-500 words for body (don’t be verbose).
  
3. Links (the currency of the internet).


• Put links in the first paragraph of the body (since some places only publish the 1st two sentences).
• Link to internal pages too, not just your homepage.
• Use anchor text (tells Google what your link is about, opportunity to help your website rank).
• Make anchor text as your page title as well (increases frequency count for Google).
• Don’t repeat links.
• Don’t use the same achor text twice .
• Set up press room as a blog with RSS .
• Set up a unique URL for each press release
  
4. The final word.
   
• Syndications decrease 43% over 3 months. (You should have ongoing PR strategy to keep links alive in the web world.)
• Traditional releases services are cheaper than online services and offer a higher return for syndication.
• Think like a journalist, not like a PR pro.
• Have something worth saying (do a small number of news releases).

Watch the full webinar here: Hubspot.com

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